As 2009 rolls to a close, everyone is considering the changes in the world of search during the year. So, we have gathered together the views from some of our experts in the Clickthrough Marketing office of what we may see in 2010 as a result of those changes.
Adam Symes, Head of Paid Advertising:
2009 has been a year of great change in social media. MySpace and Bebo have seen huge decline and yet back in 2006 they were the top two searched for terms on Google. Conversely, the Global Language Monitor has named ‘Twitter’ the word of the year. The last 12 months have seen a huge increase in the use of Twitter and although this may plateau in 2010 it will still remain a huge force as Google continues to integrate tweets into real-time search results.
Another trend that has experienced significant shifts is the use of retargeting, a form of intelligent behavioural targeting where an ad / banner is displayed on a site (sometimes unrelated) a user visits after the user visits the advertisers site.
Adrian Epstein, Paid Search Account Manager:
Google continued to develop AdWords opportunities this year. It is now allowing Google advertisers to place additional site links into ad creative when bidding on performing campaigns. These additional site links take users directly to the other categories within your site from within the ad; this is great for additional shelf space. Advertisers can now opt in to ad extensions taking products from the Google Merchant centre, this then provides selected products that are relevant to your ad, increasing conversion opportunities.
Finally, rumour has it Google is taking into consideration the page load times as a factor for ranking. That pushes the focus back on hosting companies and more importantly developers who can decrease these page load times. Whether or not Google make page load times a factor in rankings, it is one that should be a focus.
Bryn Firkins, Director of Paid Advertising:
The iPhone has now shifted around 33 million units worldwide, by default bought by affluent consumers. For many, mobile marketing has been about banners and search. Now, iPhone apps have given marketers a powerful way to get their brand message in the hands of people who have proven they are happy to spend. The iPhone App store has gone from holding around 10,000 apps at the start of 2009 to just over 100,000 now.
Advertiser spend in developing these apps can sometimes sit outside usual online media budgets as they can be a powerful source of direct revenue in their own right. With Google Android now gaining some traction, and the relative portability of iPhone apps to Android, expect apps to continue to grow in importance in 2010.
Rob Stoubos, SEO Account Manager:
Brand building and online awareness through online PR and Social Media is becoming increasingly important. Online PR and Social Media are being factored into Google’s natural search algorithm increasingly, and Google wants to use ‘public opinion’ when it comes to deciding which sites to promote in natural search. Companies who don’t establish themselves in these areas and as a result increase their traffic referrals from these areas may begin to fall in rankings when Google’s new Caffeine algorithm comes into play in 2010.
What do you feel may figure highly in the world of search in 2010? Do you agree with our experts? Where will you be committing your online marketing budget next year, and where do you expect the big wins/losses to occur?
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Now you can make the most of teamwork by allowing every member of your company who has access to Google Analytics to annotate the graphs about your traffic and highlight, for instance, why specific peaks and troughs have occurred in your website traffic.
Whilst it is possible to do this with static graphs taken from analytics already, eg in a Powerpoint presentation to a client or management, now Google have added the chance to annotate graphs to show why certain highs and lows occurred in your traffic.
Having this information available, rather than lost on a team member’s hard drive from research they were conducting, can only be ‘a good thing’.
Check out Google analytics annotations now and have a play!
We predict: 2010 will be the year of analytics analysis. It will be the year when people finally begin to nail down what works for their company and website, and what doesn’t, through hard-nosed maths, facts and evidence instead of guesswork or following the sheep.
Ah, this old chestnut! PageRank used to be one of the sacred mantras you would hear SEOs chanting. Your PR was of huge import and anyone with a PR of 5 or above felt they had the right to look down upon you. Some people lost sleep whenever their PR dropped, or if they had tried everything and still had a PR of zero.
PageRank came into being to help Google assess pages for authority, backlinks etc. It is never quite clear if the mystery surrounding how PR was calculated was solved, but over the years, PR slid down the ranks in algorithmic importance.
Until, on Oct 14th, 2009, Google finally said very clearly and in a manner that was not up for further debate, that SEOs could all sleep soundly again and PageRank, just as they had been trying to tell anyone who would listen for quite some time, was really, really not important. In fact, it had been removed from Google webmaster tools.
So, when anyone tells you to look for sites with a high PR, or to spend time trying to increase/gain PR, you will know better!
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Started by a father of three who wanted to add a little spice to the race for the Christmas number 1 in the UK charts, the Rage Against The Machine shows just how a social media campaign can go viral.
Joe Morter is not a highly paid media/PR exec, he is a hi-fi engineer, and along with his wife, Tracey, they set up the Facebook campaign to attempt to dismantle the monopoly on the charts which Simon Cowell’s X Factor has enjoyed over the last few years.
Seemingly, this campaign had everything that it needed to go viral….and it did. Rage Against The Machine were yesterday announced as the UK No 1 with their single, “Killing in the Name” instead of the X factor entry by Joe McElderry, who won the X Factor this year.
The purpose of the campaign was to encourage as many people as possible to download the RATM single, instead of the X Factor single. There was a Facebook group, which quickly garnered 450,000 fans. There were banners and images produced for everyone to use on their Facebook status, websites, blogs, Twitter and so on, thereby spreading the word very quickly about the campaign.
Why did it succeed? Well, one reason must be that peculiarly British trait of loving someone until they become successful and then seeming to delight into attempting to bring that person to their knees. Simon Cowell has become a bit like Marmite – you either love him or hate him, and right now, there are an awful lot of people who feel shades of the latter towards him for being so successful and dominating the charts. This is often seen to be at the expense of other, possibly better bands who do not have the (mis)fortune to be signed to Cowell’s record label.
Whilst it is likely that there will be similar campaigns that endeavour to replicate the success of this one, this is a first in “People Power” using social media to upset something as trivial (and I say the word carefully, knowing how some people feel about the charts!) as the Christmas number 1. There are far bigger and more meaningful causes that could potentially be similarly supported by the average citizen, and it will be interesting to see what happens in 2010 with social media people power campaigns.
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A campaign has been started in response to the Digital Economy Bill and also those websites and news organisations who cite copyright issues about linking to content on their websites.
Right2Link.org has been set up to ensure that linking to websites remains free to all.
Whilst few people would argue with the rights of a news publisher to charge for their content, or any business for that matter, the problem begins when the owners of that content start to demand that all “signposts” to that content are removed.
Links are the stitches that hold together the fabric of the Web, allowing all of us to find and share content of interest. For digital marketers, links are a vital part of our marketing strategies, and establishing links on reputable sites is of prime importance.
The current situation, which is developing rather quickly for most people’s liking, is that certain large corporations are endeavouring to take control of how and where links are placed, restricting access to certain content, and preventing a free flow of movement around the web. The search engines are being accused of benefiting financially from links to copyright content, whilst the media corps tend to forget that it is through the search engines that the majority of their users will find that content in the first place.
What do you think? Should anyone be allowed to place a link to any item of content, anywhere? How do those of us in new media, rather than news media, ensure that we are permitted to continue to share links with our readership to pertinent items, wherever these items are found on the Net?
Has the Digital Economy Bill, inadvertently or otherwise, stepped into the world of censorship and restriction of freedom of speech that should not have a place in a free, democratic society?
If you have any concerns about the way this may be going, check out the Right2Link campaign today.
Although vouchers and coupons seem to have a rather lowly image in this country, they can bring in additional trade, and help create “word of mouse” promotion for your company.
Kelkoo have just announced that they are adding voucher codes from MyVouchers, allowing shoppers access to 250-300 new codes each day to get discounts from over 2000 online retailers.
During times of recession, and particularly in the New Year when the credit card bills begin to bite, this is precisely the type of alternative that will help you find customers and build brand loyalty. Plus, it is has that “feelgood factor” for shoppers that they have found themselves a bargain.
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Major companies block access to it, many poo-poo it as the haunt of the shallow-minded seeking to share their everyday trivia with the world, and many marketers just haven’t adapted it into their social media strategy. (Usually for at least the above reasons – there are more).
And yet, Facebook is now the number 1 communications tool according to a survey by Prompt Communications. Netimperative state in their article:
When consumers were asked which method they used most frequently to communicate, 37 percent said SMS followed by Facebook and the phone at 28 percent. Respondents feel that email is now less important than social media, but only 20 percent said they could live without it entirely.
So, are you giving your potential and existing customers every opportunity to communicate with you using the method fo their choice? Also, just before you ramp up a new email marketing campaign, think about who your target audience are and which methods they might respond best to. Do you need to be looking at integrated marketing media rather than sticking to the same old techniques?
If any SEO company even vaguely offers to get your site in a) a top 10 ranking or b) achieve results fast, close your cheque book and run out of the door.
SEO is not a quick and easy process. Let’s define SEO here though, as what we really mean is “internet marketing”, not just optimising a website for a handful of keywords.
We mean bringing people to your website who are your target audience, who will be interested in what you sell/say, and who will react positively to your calls to action – they will pick up the phone, email you, subscribe to your blog or newsletter, they will buy the product.
Just as with any aspect of your business, building a reputation, becoming known, being found – it all takes time. Do not expect instant results, and don’t pay anyone who offers them.
If you are promoting an e-commerce site, you need to be aware of how the recession or tightening economy has affected potential site visitors.
For instance, many consumers have been tightening their belts and have become much more savvy about interest rates, credit cards and so on. This means that they may have changed credit card providers and, in some cases, because of media coverage, are actually ‘boycotting’ certain brands or providers.
Whilst the wider recession may not have seemingly affected your business, particularly if you are selling electronic goods this Christmas, it may have affected your consumers’ approach to finding, buying and paying for goods.
So, for instance, if you only accept certain credit cards, you could be losing out on customers. If you are not featuring in the comparison engines, you could be losing out to your competition. If your product set is now deemed to be a ‘luxury’ rather than essential, you may need to look even harder at how you capture the attention of your potential audience.
Keep a weather eye on news about consumer spending habits over the next few months and check that your website, or that of your clients, reacts to the changes being made by those that matter the most – your customers.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s statement on American TV last week seems to have started a minor furore about privacy and Google’s attitude to it.
Firefox CEO has responded by posting the link to the Firefox add-on to use Bing as a search engine instead/as well as Google, even though this reduces the income Firefox gets from Google searches.
What do you think about Google (or anyone else) keeping information from its users? Is there a line that can be crossed or is it down to each of us to seek the necessary encryption, anonymity solutions to protect ourselves?
